Debunk time again (Republicans plan on cutting SS and Medicare)

[Philly'sFinest]

Lies and false claims which landed Dems 4 pinnochios. And your corrupt president along with Barry are out there pushing this lie bigtime.

Range leftist retards/homos were duped again. Stay stupid, sheep

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/27/false-claim-that-senate-republicans-plan-end-social-security-medicare/

 

“Republicans plan to end Social Security and Medicare if they take back the Senate.”

— Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), in a tweet, Sept. 25

Don’t worry, seniors: There is no such plan.

The Facts

When Social Security was established in 1935, most Republican lawmakers supported it — but more Republicans than Democrats opposed it. When Medicare was created in 1965, slightly more Republicans opposed the new program than supported it, in contrast to the broad support among Democrats.

Decades later, Democrats have never let Republicans forget this history. In campaign attacks, Democrats often conjure up nonexistent plans by Republicans to terminate or somehow undermine the programs. This tactic has certainly given us material to fact-check.

In 2014, for instance, House Democrats falsely accused then-congressional candidate Martha McSally of wanting to “privatize” Social Security, even though a more modest version of the idea by President George W. Bush years before could not even get a committee vote when Republicans controlled both houses of Congress. And in the 2020 presidential race, Joe Biden falsely claimed that President Donald Trump had a “plan” to deplete Social Security so benefits would run out in three years.

 

Get the full experience.Choose your plan

 

When an election campaign enters its final weeks, year after year, both political parties rely on familiar themes to attack their opponents.

 

For Republicans, it’s crime and immigration. For Democrats, it’s Social Security and Medicare.

Murray, who has been in the Senate since 1993, is running against Republican Tiffany Smiley. Murray’s tweet is a succinct example of what we called “Mediscare” attacks — an effort to warn seniors that Republicans will take away their hard-earned benefits. Indeed, the rest of the tweet stated: “Washington seniors who have spent their lives paying into these programs deserve better — and I’ll keep fighting to make sure they get it.”

 

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In that same campaign, Biden accused Trump of wanting to “slash Medicare benefits.” Not so. In fact, back in 2011, then-Vice President Biden accused House Republicans of proposing a plan “eliminating Medicare in the next 10 years.” That wasn’t true, either.

Now comes the latest iteration of this campaign attack. But it’s just as empty as the previous ones.

The main source of this accusation is a document issued by Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which helps elect Republicans to the Senate. In February, Scott released a 60-page “11-point plan to rescue America” that offered 128 proposals.

Buried on Page 38, in a section on government restructuring, was one sentence: “All federal legislation sunsets in 5 years. If a law is worth keeping, Congress can pass it again.”

 

 

“Sunset” is inside-the-Beltway lingo. The Congressional Research Service offers this definition: “The sunset concept provides for programs and agencies to terminate automatically on a periodic basis unless explicitly renewed by law.” In theory, then, even a venerable program such as Social Security or Medicare would have to prove its worth all over again every five years, though neither was specifically mentioned.

Scott’s plan was almost immediately rejected by most Senate Republicans. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) was especially harsh.

“We will not have as part of our agenda a bill that raises taxes on half of the American people and sunsets Social Security and Medicare within five years,” McConnell told reporters March 1. “That will not be part of a Republican Senate majority agenda.” (Scott also proposed requiring every American to pay some kind of tax, an idea that quickly found its way into Democratic attacks.)

 

 

Scott’s write-up offered few details and had no proposed legislative language. He consistently has insisted that the document represented “Rick Scott’s policy ideas. It’s nobody else’s policy ideas.” Indeed, the plan was issued by Scott’s own campaign committee, not any GOP or Senate committee, including the NRSC.

Scott has also denied he wanted to end Social Security and Medicare.

During an interview with Fox News on March 27, Scott was asked whether his plan could “potentially sunset programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.” He dismissed that as “Democratic talking points” and said his proposal was intended to focus attention on how to deal with potential funding shortfalls in the future.

 

“No one that I know of wants to sunset Medicare or Social Security, but what we’re doing is we don’t even talk about it. Medicare goes bankrupt in four years. Social Security goes bankrupt in 12 years,” Scott said. “I think we ought to figure out how we preserve those programs. Every program that we care about, we ought to stop and take the time to preserve those programs.”

 

(It’s beyond the scope of this fact check, but Scott’s “bankrupt” language is exaggerated. Payments would continue but at reduced levels, according to the annual reports issued by the administrators of the programs’ trust funds. As we have noted before, Medicare’s Part A fund has, since 1970, been on the brink of going “broke” — but always manages to stay afloat.)

Over the summer, another Republican senator, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, floated the idea of funding Social Security and Medicare through the annual budget. Right now, the spending is automatically disbursed because the programs grant benefits to anyone who meets the qualification of having paid into the system. Johnson argued that keeping spending on “automatic pilot” was threatening to make the programs go “bankrupt.”

 

A Johnson spokesperson said Johnson was not trying to eliminate the programs but instead wanted to impose “fiscal discipline” to ensure that they “remain solvent.” When asked about Johnson’s idea, a McConnell spokesman pointed to the senator’s previous rejection of the Scott plan.

 

Finally. Murray’s staff cited as evidence for the tweet GOP support for a balanced-budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which in theory might require reductions in spending in Social Security and Medicare. Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) in January told Fox that “if Republicans take charge of the United States Senate [in 2022], I will do everything in my power to make sure we have a vote on a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution.”

Such a vote would only be for political messaging. Graham acknowledged that it would be difficult to get 67 votes in the Senate, let alone a two-thirds majority in the House — which even if successful would still require ratification by three-fourths (38) of the states.

 

In a statement to the Fact Checker, the Murray campaign said: “One of Tiffany Smiley’s biggest champions is Rick Scott, who leads the National Republican Senatorial Committee and wrote its agenda which proposes gutting Social Security and Medicare. If Republicans like Smiley disagree, they should call on Rick Scott to be removed as Chair or stop taking money from the NRSC, which she has refused to do. We are absolutely going to make sure Tiffany Smiley is held accountable for how the official Senate Republican campaign agenda would harm Washington seniors.”

The Pinocchio Test

Murray tweeted that if Senate Republicans win control of the Senate, they plan to end Social Security and Medicare.

 

 

But as evidence, her staff can only point to statements by a pair of Senate Republicans that have earned little support among their colleagues. The presumptive Senate Republican leader explicitly rejected the idea. Moreover, in both cases, the senators insisted that they were not trying to eliminate the programs but instead bolster their financial underpinnings. Whether such actions would reduce benefits is open to debate, but it’s not the same as ending the programs.

Murray would have been on more solid ground if she had cited Scott or Johnson by name and described their proposals, as Biden has done in campaign speeches. Instead, she condemns the whole caucus.

This is yet another example in which Democrats strain to conjure up a nonexistent GOP plan regarding Social Security and Medicare. Murray earns Four Pinocchios.

Four Pinocchios

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[RichJ]

Its a dem/left tactic 

 

[micknaboz]

So, so transparent.

Everyone knows who the Nazi party is.  The brown shirts were showing up at Trump's rallies pre 2016 election.

Trump has referred to them as "very fine people",

Trump kept a book of Hitlers speeches by his bedside.

The saying on that poster is part of the right wing platform, no matter how much you try and turn it around.

[Very Wide Right]

On 11/1/2022 at 1:25 PM, micknaboz said:

So, so transparent.

Everyone knows who the Nazi party is.  The brown shirts were showing up at Trump's rallies pre 2016 election.

Trump has referred to them as "very fine people",

Trump kept a book of Hitlers speeches by his bedside.

The saying on that poster is part of the right wing platform, no matter how much you try and turn it around.

Propaganda much? Just keep drinking the Kool-aid and repeating the lies....

[ICRockets2]

It's incredibly obvious this is the plan.  The GOP is going to win the House, refuse to raise the debt ceiling, and then agree to do so only after a deal is in place for "entitlement reform".  

[f8ta1ity54]

1 hour ago, ICRockets2 said:

It's incredibly obvious this is the plan.  The GOP is going to win the House, refuse to raise the debt ceiling, and then agree to do so only after a deal is in place for "entitlement reform".  

And the GOP voter base will love it. Then when shit hits the fan, the GOP will blame the democrats. Lather, rinse, repeat.

[ICRockets2]

1 minute ago, f8ta1ity54 said:

And the GOP voter base will love it. Then when shit hits the fan, the GOP will blame the democrats. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Ted Cruz will say it was "bipartisan" ignoring the mechanisms via which the government's hand was forced, and within 2 hours this will become such a sacrosanct narrative that attempts to add context will be scoffed at by every conservative in the world.

[HipKat]

Rick Scott approves of this thread

[Philly'sFinest]

31 minutes ago, HipKat said:

Rick Scott approves of this thread

The man that's on record that he's not going to cut SS and Medicare?

Keep listening to those that feed you lies

[HipKat]

57 minutes ago, Philly'sFinest said:

Keep listening to those that feed you lies

 

OK, Tucker dude.

I seen it on USSA, actually.... derrrr

 

You mean the guy who BACKTRACKED on those after his manifesto where he actually detailed getting rid of, errrrrrrrrrr, sunsetting SS got shredded??

BTW, Scott knows a little about Medicare

Senator Rick Scott's Past Medicare Fraud Case Raises Flags Years Later

[RichJ]

Whatever it is th GOP decides is better than this catastrophe this admin created which is why people are going to vote for them. 

Well, that's if the demons don't find a way to cheat

[Philly'sFinest]

2 hours ago, HipKat said:

 

OK, Tucker dude.

I seen it on USSA, actually.... derrrr

 

You mean the guy who BACKTRACKED on those after his manifesto where he actually detailed getting rid of, errrrrrrrrrr, sunsetting SS got shredded??

BTW, Scott knows a little about Medicare

Senator Rick Scott's Past Medicare Fraud Case Raises Flags Years Later

Do you even read the article, bro?

He wanted the government to state every year what their plan was on SS and Medicare. That is something that should be looked at every year as we move closer and closer to having it run out.

Oh, and Marketrealist...dErP LOL

[ICRockets2]

1 hour ago, Philly'sFinest said:

Do you even read the article, bro?

He wanted the government to state every year what their plan was on SS and Medicare. That is something that should be looked at every year as we move closer and closer to having it run out.

Oh, and Marketrealist...dErP LOL

But it doesn't have to run out.  We HAVE looked at SS and Medicare, and come to the incontrovertible conclusion that SS will remain solvent if we simply raise the cap on the payroll tax that funds it.  It's an incredibly simple solution and no Republican has ever supported doing this because they do not want Social Security to remain solvent.

[Philly'sFinest]

12 minutes ago, ICRockets2 said:

But it doesn't have to run out.  We HAVE looked at SS and Medicare, and come to the incontrovertible conclusion that SS will remain solvent if we simply raise the cap on the payroll tax that funds it.  It's an incredibly simple solution and no Republican has ever supported doing this because they do not want Social Security to remain solvent.

Sure

Because Dems care about you, and Republicans hate you

You're being played for a fool

[ICRockets2]

50 minutes ago, Philly'sFinest said:

Sure

Because Dems care about you, and Republicans hate you

You're being played for a fool

Buddy I'm a socialist, I know full well that almost every single Democrat is a piece of shit.  The problem is that you seem to believe this isn't a bipartisan phenomenon.  

[Philly'sFinest]

Just now, ICRockets2 said:

Buddy I'm a socialist, I know full well that almost every single Democrat is a piece of shit.  The problem is that you seem to believe this isn't a bipartisan phenomenon.  

So weird that you think that

You haven't a clue as to where I stand on these scumbags judging by posts like the one I'm quoting now.

I have no use for nearly all of them. Dems are the bigger issue, but both are shit and will not work for we, the people.

[ICRockets2]

Just now, Philly'sFinest said:

So weird that you think that

You haven't a clue as to where I stand on these scumbags judging by posts like the one I'm quoting now.

I have no use for nearly all of them. Dems are the bigger issue, but both are shit and will not work for we, the people.

What are your main issues, and what makes Dems worse on them?

[f8ta1ity54]

2 hours ago, ICRockets2 said:

What are your main issues, and what makes Dems worse on them?

The dems aren't white christian nationalist enough.

[HipKat]

7 hours ago, RichJ said:

Whatever it is th GOP decides is better than this catastrophe this admin created which is why people are going to vote for them. 

Well, that's if the demons don't find a way to cheat

I'm sorry, what did this administration create that they didn't inherit?

[212frawk]

On 11/1/2022 at 1:13 PM, Philly'sFinest said:

Lies and false claims which landed Dems 4 pinnochios.

suddenly, area MAGAT starts believing the MSM.  who saw that coming?

[Albany,n.y.]

Looks Like Sean Hannity Was Caught In A Big Fat Lie (msn.com)

 

Cue the riposte from the Twitter user Acyn, who shared 2010 video of Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), then a candidate, saying his objective was “to phase out Social Security ― to pull it out by the roots and get rid of it.”

The New York Times reported Wednesday that congressional Republicans “have embraced plans to reduce federal spending on Social Security and Medicare, including cutting benefits for some retirees and raising the retirement age for both safety net programs.”

Some lawmakers have revealed a few specifics on the table if the GOP retakes the House, including raising the Social Security eligibility age to 70, requiring the elderly to pay increased premiums for health insurance, and imposing a strict government debt ceiling that could adversely impact entitlement programs, according to Bloomberg Government and the Times.

Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) has proposed sunsetting all federal spending legislation in five years, forcing a dysfunctional Congress to act if it wants to keep Social Security and Medicare.